Four robotics companies — HDT Robotics, iRobot, Northrop Grumman and QinetiQ — recently ran their M240 machine gun-armed robots through a live-fire demo at Fort Benning in what has been dubbed the “Robotic Rodeo.” The point was to give the brass a chance to see just how viable such systems are.

The Army, which issued a favorable assessment of the technology last week, doesn’t see our armed robotic overlords as weapons taking the place of boots on the ground, but rather as combatants working alongside troops in the field.

Then our military (behind the scenes, of course) sells these robots to Russia and China. By that time we have developed anti-robot robots, which are sold to Russia and China after they have become obsolete for the next weapon that we develop. The next one? Who knows? But it just might be quantum computer teleportation of bombs and the like. Maybe the Russians and Chinese, or even the Japs, will beat us to that one.